Monday, February 16, 2015

This past Sunday, Feb. 15, was the deadline for people to sign up for healthcare coverage. While this is a priority for many people across the country, millennials have been elusive and have proven to be a hard demographic to appeal to with this message.

President Obama wanted everyone, especially millennials, to sign up for healthcare coverage. There are two great ways to connect with this powerful demographic: social media marketingand viral videos; so, to connect with Millennials, the President utilized those mediums, especially the video part. Obama and Buzzfeed Motion Pictures created a video to promote Healthcare.gov.

The results that speak of the video's success are still being calculated; however, the popularity of the video is tremendous, having been watched 15 million times in its first eight hours. By the end of last night, the video surpassed 42 million views.

In the video, we see President Obama doing American-Millennial things like taking a selfie on his iPhone with a selfie-stick, blaming Obama for something (you know the sarcastic phrase, "Thanks, Obama."). However, the point of the video is hidden in his speech practice that is done in front of the mirror.

Obama is no shy person to social media, using it heavily in both Presidential campaigns and for other efforts, such as his Reddit AMA, chats with YouTube stars, and other creative projects.

Monday, February 9, 2015

Is change in the air? Or, rather, on your computer screen? YouTube, the world's most popular video platform & an emerging influencer in search engine optimizationrankings (it's owned by Google, hence the reason), could be challenged by four different startups.

So what are these "Davids" who are looking to take down "Goliath"?

Victorious. Founded by Sam Rogoway, Michael Todd, and Bing Chen, this mobile-first platform allows creators have a house for their content, including their own apps. You can also interact with other users and fans as well as show off the content. This platform makes moneyby having in-app purchases, e-commerce, and standard ad formats.

5by. Founded by Greg Isenberg, the mobile app recommends content to users (the content is divided by categories) due to the ratings they give on previously watched videos. Users of the app can share and chat about videos with other users, privately. The app makes money by brand sponsorships and highlighted videos. It has since been bought by Stumbleupon.

Vessel. Founded by Jason Kilar and Richard Tom, former execs from Hulu. This app hosts premium shows from publishers and creators. Those who use the service get dibs on first-look content. The company makes money from subscriptions and brands can purchase 5-second pre-roll for videos.

Pluto TV. Founded by Nick Grouf, Tom Ryan, and Ilya Pozin, the platform operates much like linear TV. It curates videos from many publishers and puts them into 100+ channels for viewers; viewers see their choices in an easy-to-use guide. This platform makes money from pop-up ads and interstitial videos.

The internet changes constantly; one day, some company will be top dog and another day, a new guy on the scene is making a name for itself. This is why it is so important to be ranked on Google search results-- your website can be lost in the depths of the websites if it is not being promoted. Does you website have SEOservices?

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

The Super Bowl on Sunday night attracted record viewers and was the most mentioned Super Bowl in history. Not to mention its popularity on Twitter but it was also a huge hit with Facebook as well. According to Facebook, 65 million people engaged in conversation.

The game was a terrific background for the two social media giants as they tried to get into good relationships with marketers. Twitter has already been a terrific platform for brands who wanted to join conversations; despite having fewer users, Twitter was actually the better place to discuss the game and its infamous ads than Facebook was.

Between the two, Twitter is the more popular place for live social commentary. However,Facebookhas made some progress in being a go-to place for discussions like Twitter has. Facebook features trending topics, like Twitter, and they even setup a a hub for Super Bowl conversations. Both platforms have their pros and cons.

Marketers, such as our Chicago SEO companymarketing team, engage differently on Facebook than they do on Twitter. Here's a list of comparisons between the two & how they performed on Sunday night (with things related to the Super Bowl).

Facebook had 265 million posts, comments, & likes.

Twitter had 36 million tweets & 2.6 billion impressions. 25 million more tweets than last year.

Both were buzzing with chatter when the Patriots sealed the win with the interception. Facebook had 1.36 million comments per minute.

Twitter had 395,000 tweets per minute talking about the interception.

The halftime show had 3 million tweets; Facebook had 1 million people per minute discuss the show.

Half the Super Bowl ads featured hashtags, Facebook was only mentioned 4 times.

Top 3 performing moments on Facebook were the win, halftime show, and the 3rd quarter touchdown for the Seahawks to take the lead.

Top 3 performing tweets on Twitter were the final interception, the victory, and the final moments of the halftime show.